HTC prepares mainland China invasion

Challenges ZTE

HTC could be giving behemoth ZTE a run for its money in the Chinese smartphone market.

The mobile company, which is top of the pops in its native Taiwan, has announced that it will ramp up the number of shops in mainland China from the current 630 to 2000 by the end of the year. The Chinese telecoms market is 10 times bigger than its Taiwanese cousin.

According to the Taiwan Economic News, senior executive vice president at HTC, Fred Liu said HTC is aiming to conquer the China market, pitting it against the big boys such as ZTE. Bringing with it will be R&D, a broad product line, and a new approach to retail.

Liu added that the powers that be at HTC are working on serious R&D expansion, set to be four times bigger than its existing projects in the mainland. Once completed, the team will work on stuff like time-division (TD) mobile technologies.

It has already released its HTC Incredible phones in partnership with China Telecom as well as unleashing its TD-SCDMA and WCDMA versions of the HTC Sensation phones, in partnership with China Mobile and China Unicom.

The telecoms bigwigs have responded by helping HTC promote its retail outlets in the mainland, which means increased competition for ZTE. It won't be shaking in its boots any time soon - it is already well established in China and has aggressive expansion plans for the rest of the world where it'll look to take a bite out of HTC's cherry. Then there's all the infrastructure kit and contracts it keeps winning, worldwide.

HTC clearly knows that the mainland is the best way to go if it wants to conquer the Asia Pacific market.